Why Link DigiCom rolled out a new customer communications platform

Getting personalised messages at the right time and via a customer’s preferred channel is the name of the game for Link DigiCom, a communications service provider that’s investing heavily into new technology in a bid to boost client communications.

Link DigiCom specialises in direct engagement with clients' stakeholders for essential and marketing communications. Part of the ASX-listed Link Group, clients include public, private and government organisations both domestically and internationally.

Prior to adopting Quadient Inspire's customer communications management platform, the group was using multiple platforms to send communications, its general manager, Michael Buttigieg, said.

"What we needed was one platform that could achieve everything from a communications point of view, in one hub,” he said.

Buttigieg said Link DigiCom is also putting a strong emphasis on personalisation.

“There’s no use having a marketing message that's targeted for somebody in their 60’s on a 20-year-old’s statement, so everything that we do is completely personalised to gender and age," he continued. "Whatever the fund is trying to push, whatever their objective is, we’re really drilling down in terms of personalisation.”

The share registry and superannuation space makes up about 65 per cent of Link DigiCom's revenue; the other 35 per cent comes from external clients. The group is also looking to move into the insurance space in the not-too-distant future. But whatever the client, speed to market - and accuracy - is a big consideration for the company, and turnaround time is a big focal point.

“A lot of our communications is marketing-based, and clients are very reactive to the market,”Buttigieg said. “We have examples where we need to communicate 220,000 printed communications, developed, printed, enveloped, sent next business day. Speed to market is our biggest struggle.”

Prior to Quadient, the company also wasn’t able to do anything in the webspace.

Arguably, the biggest win from rolling out a centralised communications platform is efficiency, Buttigieg said. “What this allowed us to do was turn things around that were taking us potentially weeks, in a matter of hours or days, with a better quality output,” he said.

“We’re able to now create these in HTML5, or as dynamic communications, so members are able to log in securely and view their statement in HTML, meaning that it is mobile responsive and they can make changes right there and then.”

Additionally, Link DigiCom recently implemented the ability to embed personalised videos (which can feature an actor, a member, or graphics) in dynamic communications as part of the Quadient Inspire technology platform.

“Not only is your superannuation statement in text that you’re able to print, but also here it is spoken to you through a video, and all integrated within about two hours,” Buttigieg said.

The company plans to aggressively push the personalised video feature over the next year, a move that allows for further ability to communicate on another level with members.

Eyeing changes to the superannuation market, in particular, Buttigieg said consumers want to move away from paper, and he noted an aggressive push away into the electronic space in the last three years. With that is a desire to get smarter about the data you’ve got.

“What people are getting is actually much more valuable to them. Paper is dead,” he said. “In the superannuation space, about 60 per cent of members are getting electronic comms, and about 40 per cent are still paper - and there’s an increasing shift towards electronics, and not the other way.”

While the latest martech tools are helpful, the technology needs to address specific customer needs.

“Getting tech into the business is quite easy. There are plenty of products out there in the market, but the thing for me is how can I apply that,” Buttigieg said. “There’s no use having all of this technology, if you can’t apply it to what people want.

“Understand the customer requirements, the customer base, and what they are trying to achieve.”

According to CMO’s State of the CMO 2017 research, 83 per cent of CMOs believe customer experience to be central to their role. An interesting stat considering few of us experience great brand experiences.

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